Where did the espresso martini come from?

"Coffee in the bar industry and coffee, in general, has become really popular," said Robb Collins, who is the group head bartender at The London Cocktail Club with a decade of experience as a mixologist. "There’s craft coffee stores popping up everywhere. It’s a coffee movement. When people go out drinking, they think 'I wanna combine alcohol with coffee', which is how this drink, the espresso martini, started out."

Rumour has it, we have famous cocktail connoisseur and bartender Dick Bradsell to thank for this wonderful creation after a beautiful model came into his bar one night and asked for a drink that would 'wake her up'.

Robb said: "The station he was working at had a coffee machine next to him and he just had coffee on his mind. At the time, in the cocktail industry, vodka was really big. It’s all people drank. He combined the two and some coffee liqueur and some sugar and that’s how this baby was born."

Top tips for making a great espresso martini

According to Robb, it's all about the quality of the vodka, freshly brewed espresso, making sure you have the right 'balance' of ingredients and chilling your glass so it's 'really cold'.

"You don’t want the bitterness of the coffee to overwhelm anything. That’s why you add a bit of sugar so it counteracts that bitterness and makes it smooth. It's all about getting the right balance."